


my mind is away

by orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, blood mention, death mention, sorry friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 13:04:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1780132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Hey, Kageyama?” Hinata’s gone still. His head thumps against Kageyama’s back, just between his shoulder blades, and rolls until his cheek is pressed against his shoulder. Hinata draws his knees to his chest and jostles Kageyama in the process. Kageyama feels his breath snag and hang on an impatient breath.</i><br/> <br/><i>“What?”</i></p><p>  <i>He exhales and Kageyama’s attention is stolen immediately by its unsteadiness. “What do you think happens when you die?”</i></p><p> </p><p>(in which winter's colder without a sun)</p>
            </blockquote>





	my mind is away

Is this my old shape? My mind is away. 

How long have you been gone? 

the cold winters aged the soft of your face 

and I can't move on. 

                               ("[Autumn Tree](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoxM17d8g5U)" by Milo Greene)

...

 

Kageyama wakes up.

The blankets wrapped around him are cool to the touch, chilled both by winter’s breath and the kind of glacial crawl that comes from stilled blood. Shivering, he swings bare legs over the edge of his sunken mattress and winces when the flat of his feet press against the floor. The sound of his footsteps comes slow and muffled even as the cold hones the edges of everything else. His dresser’s drawers are covered in an invisible frost that bites like broken glass, digging into the dry cracks of his skin, tightening his joints with a frostbitten wrench, turning and  _turning_  until he’s a twisted mess of bone and freezer-burnt muscle. He pulls on layers that fail to smooth the gooseflesh spread down his arms and slips from a quiet house into quieter streets.

The sky is a torn canvas—white and blue streak in feathered ribbons from horizon to horizon, dawn pale rose in the east, bleeding pastel into expressionless pastel. Stars gleam from the long cuts and he watches them fade while walking to school. Some disappear when he blinks and others wash away with the steam of his breath and more, still, lose their shine slowly. There’s something stirring as an itch at the bottom of his stomach and the back of his throat, but coughing brings no relief; it only drags the cold rough over his tongue. Winter seeps as star-studded watercolor, pigments iced between his teeth when he breathes, and summer’s warmth is less than a memory, immaterial and aged-paper thin at his fingertips.

“Good morning.” Yamaguchi hunches his shoulders in the gym’s post-dawn shade, sleep coarse voice caught in his muffler and released in billowing vapor clouds. His fingers shake, jangling the keys clutched tight in his grip, and Kageyama looks away, trying to swallow around a rising lump. The itch grows worse and their cast shadows creep and spill like ink, messy edges stretching west over yellowed grass.

“Sick?” a second year asks later, low into his stretch. The words roll off the yellow hardwood and into Kageyama’s frozen ears, distant and disjointed.

He clears his throat, blinks, and nods. “I think so.”

Kageyama stands on the brittle silence of the gym, its crackling threatening under his heels, and knows there are no wholes to make with one half.   

 

> _“I_ told  _you it was a bad idea_ ,”  _Hinata says, snickering, flushed face pushed close to Kageyama’s, hands flat on his chest. His fingers curl into the thin of his shirt, like he’s going to shove Kageyama, but their feet stay flat on the city’s pavement, dry beneath a doorway. Rain patters just behind Hinata, wind-shifted and heavy sheeted and damp on their skin. The fat drops blur the street’s lights and curtain them from the world, catching breaths from each other, hearts caught in buoyed staccato._
> 
> _“You started running first.” Kageyama’s fighting the grin crawling onto his face and losing. His bag thumps soundlessly behind him as he falls back and onto the anonymous door. Hinata follows him, laughing harder, drops of water falling from his soaked hair and curving down his cheek, jaw, neck. Hinata’s breath puffs softly against Kageyama’s collarbone, summer-warm and soft. Kageyama lowers his head, nose brushing against the crown of Hinata’s head. He’s beginning to laugh, too. “You started running first—“_

 

“A practice match,” Tsukishima says mid-January, leaning through Kageyama’s classroom’s door. The headphones dropped around his neck blare tinny guitar, all fast paced minor chords and shallow drum beats. “Tuesday at six.” Kageyama crosses his arms and raises his chin at an angled tilt. His lips twist but his eyes are clear, which is enough to encourage Tsukishima. He knocks an open palm awkwardly against the wall, gathering his determination, and doesn’t glance away when Kageyama meets his gaze.

“You should go.” Tsukishima’s fortitude only lasts so long. He trains a false focus on the backs of other milling students, but third-year Tsukishima has better morals than his first-year counterpart, and Kageyama hasn’t played in a game for months. There’s steeled and tempered resolution ribbing his tone and that’s— _different_  than Kageyama remembers.  _Pity_ , he thinks, and it clings to him like freezing water to ice.

“I’ll think about it,” he says, and means it. He scratches the back of his neck with purple fingernails and steps away. Tsukishima shrugs one shoulder before disappearing into the throng, anxiety stiffened shoulders easing with every step away from Kageyama.

 

> _“—so I was saying like, thanks for the card but I’m not really looking for a girlfriend, y’know? And she gets this really sad look and I felt bad, too, and—“ Hinata pauses at the street’s corner and turns to grin at Yachi and Kageyama, who lag behind his enthusiastic strides. “—now I’m going to meet her for lunch, or something, on Sunday.”_
> 
> _“We’re going shopping, though,” Yachi says, scrunching her nose. Kageyama scowls, and while it’s not a change from his usual expression, Hinata can feel the difference. He scuffs his shoes against the concrete and dips his chin, peeking up through his eyelashes to study Kageyama’s face._
> 
> _“You guys can go.” The last of the traffic growls by and Hinata steps into the street backwards, hands stuffed in his shorts’ pockets. He’s still smiling apologetically, and Kageyama’s frown has started to ease in its intensity. Yachi hums, still displeased, because it’s obvious to everyone that Hinata’s their social glue. Without him, the trip will be quiet and awkward, because Kageyama and Hinata have grown into each other, and one without the other is—less than a whole._
> 
> _“You’re too nice, dumbass,” Kageyama says, oblivious to the petulant whine of it. Yachi hides a smile behind her hand._
> 
> _“More like you’re an asshole, asshole.”_
> 
> _“You can’t use it twice in a row.”_
> 
> _“I just did, didn’t I?”_
> 
> _Hinata screeches when Kageyama digs his fingers into his hair and squeezes painfully. He scrabbles at Kageyama’s arm and struggles before tripping over a curb, falling over and taking Kageyama with him. Yachi doubles over with laughter, slapping at the tangled mess of her two closest friends, and composes herself enough to snap a quick photo._
> 
> _She has it printed and framed for Hinata’s birthday. He keeps it on his dresser and loves to point it out to Kageyama every time he visits, sniggering at the instant roaring temper it triggers. Kageyama’s wide eyes and red face keeps him entertained for weeks and Kageyama pretends to be more bothered by it than he really is, a trend that continues faithfully to the end._
> 
>  

Tsukishima turns when Kageyama walks through the gym doors Tuesday. He blinks, eyebrows furrowing, before Yamaguchi notices his arrival and jogs over with a smile.

“You came!” The sleeves of his jersey fall down, and he pushes at them impatiently, keeping his gaze even with Kageyama’s. “The other team is here,” he says, and points to the quiet and uneasy group of players across the court.

Kageyama slips on his shoes and loops the laces with practiced ease, eyeing the competition. They’re a team Karasuno’s played only a few times before, mostly first and second years with no remarkable players. He rolls his wrists and stands, steadying himself with a long, low breath. His hands are icy when Ukai blows the whistle and his lungs tighten as the game begins.

“Right!” Kageyama’s eyes snap to the side, attention seized by his teammate’s shout, and raises his arms. The ball falls from its half-arc and into his hands, the weight agonizingly familiar, and he pushes, knowing the angle is flawless. In the second between toss and spike, Kageyama glances through the net’s loose weave. Black blurs suddenly in his vision and he staggers when he lands, covering his eyes against a rush of wind. The ball drops to the floor on the other side of the court, unnoticed by Kageyama as his focus shifts to a blur of pitch smudged across the window. It turns, twisting impossibly, like an infinite length of paper unfolding from itself, black as a midwinter night’s sky, and the sharp hook of a beak and the jagged ruffle of feathers pulls a name from the surface of his mind.   

 _A crow_ , he thinks. The itch in his throat blisters and he coughs and shivers. The ground falls out from under him and his knees liquefy, sounds rushing in one ear and out the other, white noise and static like rusted hinges all piling onto each other inside his skull, burning hotter than anything he’s felt in months and—

 

> _Kageyama’s phone buzzes, followed a short second later by Yachi’s merry chime. They’re standing between rows of clothes in a perfume-heavy store, Kageyama’s arms filled with her finds._
> 
> _“’super awkward date send help asap,’” Yachi reads. Kageyama looks at the same message on his phone and allows himself a swell of smugness. He really hadn’t been worried about the date. At all. The idiot would bore anyone and the newest admirer is no exception. Juggling merchandise, Kageyama begins to type his reply, but Hinata sends another text before he can finish._
> 
> _oops she thinks its awkward too. shes leaving early_
> 
> _then:_
> 
> _can I meet you guys somewhere?_
> 
> _He erases his message (you decided to go so it’s your fau-) and tucks his phone away when Yachi calls Hinata, one hand clamped over her free ear and head bowed as she talks. She shoos Kageyama away, pointing an elbow toward the registers, and walks to the front of the store._
> 
> _A long-line of impatient shoppers later and with the feeling like a pack mule, Kageyama joins Yachi on a bench. She’s finished her phone call and sits with crossed legs, summer-bare knees knocking against Kageyama’s thigh. He hauls the shopping bag into her lap, retrieves the billed hat he’d picked out, and spins it in his hands._
> 
> _“You know,” Yachi starts, looking up from the bag’s contents. “Today’s a good ice-cream day.”_
> 
> _Kageyama glances out the mall’s glass doors. The parking lot’s a watery mirage, heat boiling up from the black asphalt, and he’s abruptly and fiercely thankful for air conditioning. White clouds stack on the horizon, building into storms, and he wonders if he should’ve brought an umbrella._
> 
> _“I’m going to get some.” Yachi hands him the bag and stands, untucking her wallet from her pocket. The stitched-flower leather was a gift from him and Hinata—they’d combined months’ worth of allowance, but Hinata had assured her it had been worth it. Kageyama grudgingly and silently agreed._
> 
> _Ten minutes later, with the last remnants of his ice-cream sticky on his fingers, Kageyama checks his phone. He doesn’t realize he’s frowning until Yachi comments on it._
> 
> _“I wonder what’s taking him so long.” She twirls her phone charm between her fingers, tracing the loops of the pink bow set at the end of a silver ribbon, and bites her lip. “He has his bike.”_
> 
> _Kageyama tosses his popsicle stick into a nearby trashcan and stretches. The space just below his heart has emptied and an ocean of fear rushes in. He doesn’t know why he’s so uneasy until sirens scream on the highway outside and he—_

“—Kageyama?”

There are hands at his back and voices around and above him, shifting and falling between his fingers. He’s crumpled on the floor, arms just barely supporting his forward slouch, and when he looks with squinted and hazy eyes, the barred windows are empty.

“The bird?” His bones creak wearily as he straightens his back. He’s stuck in a metaphysical rut, unable to move, and he’s never been so  _cold_ -

“…bird?” Yamaguchi’s eyes widen bewilderedly, and the concern in his voice is enough to snap Kageyama back into reality. His body is heavy and the hardwood stings against his palms but he’s awake enough to feel the gym’s uncomfortable silence packed at his back.

“Never mind.” Kageyama accepts the hand Yamaguchi offers and hauls himself to his feet. A headache crawls at his temples and he rubs at his right eyelid, trying to chase away the white spots that linger there.

“Maybe you should-“

“I’m going home,” Kageyama says, cutting him off deliberately. The spots rupture and crowd at the edges of his vision, framing Yamaguchi’s face in flashes of off-colors. His breath comes shallow and the air scrapes him raw and he needs to sleep, maybe, to soothe the ice of his skin and to quell the tired, frustrated whine of white noise in his ears.

Kageyama makes his escape to Karasuno’s murmured conversations, the soles of his shoes crunching against dead grass and frozen mud and the sun simmers in the palest sky he’s ever seen, colorless and drained, the trees like fingers of lace pressed against the flat of it. A murder of crows stirs noisily from their roosts, disappearing into the evening, black against the day’s last breath of color, movement all an unfocused blur, and he’s never been so  _cold_ —

 

 

> _“Kiyoko-san and Yachi get along really well, huh.”_
> 
> _“I guess,” Kageyama mutters, running his hands through the park’s long grass, his palms grazing the fuzzy tops. Hinata’s back is bony but sturdy against his own and every breath he pulls pushes against Kageyama, until they’ve synchronized like the tide, in and out and in, tucked into a summer field and scattered shadows. In the tall tree’s shade, Kageyama can almost ignore the day’s oppressive heat, and decides he’s—comfortable._
> 
> _“Yachi was really excited about seeing her.” Hinata’s messing with something in his hands, evident in the occasional poke of his elbows into Kageyama’s sides and the interrupted rhythm of his voice. “She said they’re going to see a movie, I think.”_
> 
> _Kageyama nods and bends the tall stems, then lets go, watching them straighten before being caught in a wet wind. Rain threatens in the dark clouds bunched over the lower valley and weighs as a copper-tang against his tongue. The air is thick and lenient and his eyelids begin to droop._
> 
> _“Hey, Kageyama?” Hinata’s gone still. His head thumps against Kageyama’s back, just between his shoulder blades, and rolls until his cheek is pressed against his shoulder. Hinata draws his knees to his chest and jostles Kageyama in the process. Kageyama feels his breath snag and hang on an impatient breath._
> 
> _“What?”_
> 
> _He exhales and Kageyama’s attention is stolen immediately by its unsteadiness. “What do you think happens when you die?”_
> 
> _“Haah?” Kageyama stiffens, thrown, before twisting around. Hinata squawks and falls to the side, cradled in crushed and bent grass. The stems he’d tried to braid together fall, forgotten. His cheeks burn a humiliated red and Kageyama snorts incredulously. “Where did that come from?”_
> 
> _“Nowhere,” Hinata says, all but pouting. He diverts his eyes and scrunches his nose. “Just answer the question.”_
> 
> _“…I don’t know.” Kageyama turns his back again, his own face red from some awful kind of secondhand embarrassment, and mutters a petulant: “Probably nothing.”_
> 
> _“You’re so boring.” Hinata flops his arms back into the grass and stares at the sky, the toe of his shoe poking at Kageyama’s lower back._
> 
> _“Am not.”_
> 
> _“Are.” A cloud rolls across the sun and a wet wind weaves through his hair and Hinata’s probably getting mud on his shirt, but Kageyama’s content. “I think—when you die—you don’t leave. Or something.” His foot stills and the sun reappears. Kageyama continues to bend and unbend the grass, as if fascinated. “Like, ghosts and stuff.”_
> 
> _“You believe in ghosts?” Kageyama doesn’t know why he’s surprised, but-_
> 
> _“I don’t know.” Hinata’s voice twists and Kageyama can almost_ feel  _his bratty grin. “But if I died, I’d probably haunt you.”_
> 
> _“Please don’t.”_
> 
> _“Die? Or haunt you?” Hinata’s definitely starting to laugh._
> 
> _Kageyama grits his teeth, shifts uncomfortably, and grumbles a rough and shame-fed: “Both.” Then, in a vain attempt to steer to familiar waters, he adds a definitely-not-fond “Dumbass.”_
> 
> _Hinata scoffs but the shoe returns, pressing and persistent and probably dirtying Kageyama’s shirt, and if he leans into it, he won’t admit to it._
> 
>  

The house is empty again when he opens the front door and for that, he’s mostly grateful. He steps inside and the cold follows him, curling up from the floorboards in an unsettlingly sinister way; it’s inescapable and lines his bones with slick fear.

His room’s door slides open soundlessly, which is  _weird_ , because there’s been in a rut in the tracks for years, and when Kageyama looks inside, his lungs empty and the itch in his throat blazes so cold it’s hot and—

                there is a crow sitting on his bed.

It’s more shadow than flesh and the edges of it curl like steam, all black and gray, a cutout of coal feathers, ethereal, and it’s kind of absurd that it’s sitting on his  _bed_ , because it’s such an otherworldly thing and the neat pulled-lines of his sheets  _aren’t_  and Kageyama’s having trouble breathing through his shivering.

The crow opens its beak and static spills from it, hissing and crackling and  _wrong_  and he’s on his knees, caught in the beady stare of a bird that brandishes dripping wings. Night crowds his window with its pale dark and the white spots return to overwhelm. He dangles on the edges of consciousness and every breath is too shallow and too quick and—

 

>   _there’s a line of red rubbed into the street’s pavement, and he wonders in a half-hysterical and half-disjointed voice if it’ll evaporate in the heat. The sidewalks are edged with an anxious crowd that shifts and murmurs excitably, all gasps and high, reedy voices, and the summer cicadas are drowned by the thundering of his pulse. Yachi tightens her grip on his wrist and somehow he’s still holding onto the ice-cream she’d bought for Hinata; the plastic crinkles uselessly in his slack grip as he stares, uncomprehending, at the scene._
> 
> _“…an accident,” he hears, later, somewhere away from the overturned truck and the bike crumpled under its metal belly. There’s noise (patient hands and worried hands and tears, too) but he’s bottomed out into a ravine of soundless panic, numb to the touch, cold._
> 
> _“I’ll call you,” Yachi says after the memorial service, her eyes red and face splotchy, the small round of her chin beginning to crumple again. She drags an unsteady breath through her stuffy nose and pins Kageyama with a watery stare. “Okay?”_
> 
> _He’s sweating through his clothes and he’s miserable and sick to his stomach, but he manages a nod and allows her tentative hug._
> 
> _Summer fades into autumn and the cold covers the pieces of him, frozen flats of ice like lattices in the empty places formed by Hinata’s absence and the first time he steps into the gym in a month, he whips around and runs to hide in the bushes nearby. Thorns cut at his arms and legs with every shaky breath until Yachi finds and detangles him, hard-eyed, her shoes coated in dirt._
> 
> _Talking helps and he’s_ fine _, except sometimes he wakes from sleep in the middle of the night because there’s a cool press of unseen weight on his mattress or tapping at the window or shadows sliding sinister across the walls. Volleyball is more painful than he remembers and sometimes movement twitches just out of sight when he tosses and he turns to find that no one is there._
> 
> _He knows there are no wholes to make with one half._

 

Kageyama wakes up, crumpled still on the floor of his room, and the crow is gone.

 

> _“Hey,” Hinata says, and it’s so quiet it’s almost lost to the rain. Kageyama’s forehead is pressed just above his and he’s happy for the proximity._
> 
> _“Wha-“ Kageyama begins, but he’s cut off by the look in Hinata’s eyes. His hands fall down to Hinata’s waist and he leans down, caught in a magnetic haul, gravity tugging him like a satellite around a star, and Hinata meets him halfway._
> 
> _“To the top of the world,” Hinata murmurs, the mere centimeters between them warm with meaning. His lips twitch into an infectious grin. “It’s a promise, right?”_
> 
> _Kageyama’s short-circuiting, but accomplishes a breathless “Obviously.”_

 

He closes his eyes and does not shiver into the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> oops


End file.
